Awesome laptop, just replaced the 120GB with the SSD - nice and qiuet and very quick too 
My company has had two of these, one of which has been returned due to quality issues so build quality is not great. I am also seeing the old “keyboard marks on screen” issue, nice one Dell - will be moaning about that later…
Our wireless networks work very well with WPA, suggest maybe you have another issue there…
Just WISH the SSD was quicker…
Nice review Jeff btw
Can some one post step by step with pics (if possible) on how to do a clean install of vista. I am new to formating hdd and tentative on doing it.
Thanks!!
Super article. This has saved me quite a headache trying to get this corrected through Dell “support” cough … cough. I was getting the same blue screen error on a clean install of Vista Business and after loading the driver listed in the article it is working like a champ.
I recently bought a dell d430 with an SSD and it was useless, reason:
Poor random write performance. The user in question had a multi-GB outlook mailbox and the machine would constantly freeze for 5-50 seconds while the HD was doing IO blocking as it shifted blocks around. Had to replace with a standard technology 1.8" drive now all is well. $500 out the window.
Grunbler, that’s weird-- SSDs are supposed to excel at random write performance. However. I have seen occasional, inexplicable IO pauses like what you describe, but usually only for a few seconds. Do you have a source for the block shifting explanation? Is this a known issue documented anywhere?
The only concern I noticed but no one touches on. When opting for the the LED display screen,you get a (point three) 0.3 mp camera. thats 316k camera. The standard LCD screen is a little thicker and comes with a 2.0 mp camera. Most dont use the camera anyway but a 0.3 has a horrible picture. I would like to see a side by side LED to LCD in the m1330.
thanks
jd
I’m a little concerned about my new xps 1330. I did not reformat the system once I received my laptop. If you ask me, this computer is slow! I’m not sure if its just the crappy Vista home premium OS or just my computer in general! I have the T7500 2.2 ghz with 2 gigs of ram, and I feel as if my old pentium 4, 2.4 ghz with 512 mb of ram computer is much faster and instantaneous. Please someone tell me if its my system, because I’m on the verge of sending this shit back! Internet browsing seems sluggish, loading applications seem slow, even opening the control panel takes some time. I was thinking that with the features and options I put into this machine, I’d expect something more than my old notebook, but this seems worse, just good aesthetics… I even read a review about how there is a slight slump in the keyboard on some models, and of course mine seems to have a little hump in it as well. The computer itself acts up also, with the changing display and mouse settings… Sometimes I can’t even adjust the brightness of my laptop… This is just too many problems. Please can anyone help me out regarding my 1330?
Just ordered a black m1330. Went with a 320 sata instead of the ssd which seems to the complete opposite of what people want here. The weight and access time advantages are not remotly close enough to make up for size and costliness of the thing afaic. I have a 200gb music collection I’d like to carry around with me so it was a no brainer. When ssds get to the point where they are in the 120-160gb ranges for $250-$300, maybe I’ll give them another look. As is right now they are absurdly, absurdly disadvantaged compared to their mechanical brothers.
Great deal on Dell.com right now for these btw.
T7500
3gb DDR2
13.3 LED display
320gb hdd
integrated wireless broadband
GeForce dedicated graphics card
Wireless N mini card
two batteries/ 6 and 9 cell
4 years lojack
4 years accident coverage(huge one)
$1910 out the door + 4% off that if you sign up for Dell credit + $270 back in gift cards
$1570 total.
Also what is the prefered color here. I usually go for black, but haven’t seen the red version to really write that one off.
hi i just ordered a XPSm1330
i want to remove Vista from it and install XP, can anyone guide me to how to do that,is it going to be ok or should i go with vista, because vista is littlebit slower than XP.
Dell’s XPS 1330 has great video card on board: GeForce 8400M GS - which according to NVIDIA’s website should support resolution upto 2560x1600 to drive Dell’s 30" screen. Well, it does not. I can’t even get it to show abismal 1920x1200 using Dual link HDML to DVI cable.
Way to go Dell. Oh, in case you are wondering, it took Dell 3 weeks of daily calling to find that out after I was sold the screen and laptop as a package. Stupid Dell.
Before I send this back, has anyone come acros this problem found a solution?
G
Hi Jeff,
I’m looking at new laptops and I’m very interested in the solid state hard drive (Dell now offers a 64GB version on the M1330). My main question is does Dell provide a Vista DVD in which to use in the reformat or at least a usable Product Key that I can use with another Vista DVD? I tried asking this of Dell and all I get is “You don’t need to install any software, it’s preinstalled” or “there is a recovery CD included”. A recovery CD that just puts the bloatware back isn’t much use…
Mike
It would be so nice is the reocvery dvd put back the bloatware. But the xps m1330 has 3 recovery cds:
1 for vista, it only installs vista no drivers or bloatware.
1 for drivers and bloatware, you have to install the dirvers and bloatware on by one (no need to install bloatware yay), thankfully it show you which ones you need for your laptop.
1 for dell media direct. Needs to be installed if you reformat, even if you dont remove the media direct partion, for the media direct pre-boot button to work
With flash drives, who has to defrag? This should save some time and cycles. I wonder when OSs will be tuned to flash memory.
tOM
I have small problem with fingerprint reader( just dont work ) on my m1330 .Does anybody have the same issue with m1330 ?
I’m sure it’s a great laptop and all… but when comparing to the vaio sz series, i just can’t live without the “fn+directions” keyboard feature… i no longer use end/home/page-up/page-down keys… silly i know, but i just love using those key combinations.
Other than that, i’d buy one right away
brecke, how many of those keys you love can be replicated by holding ALT and pressing arrow keys?
Hi, I’m just ordering a dual setup (power desktop and m1330 portability). I’m going for the 64GB SSD and therefore found this great blog/forum about the little gem.
A couple of comments:
Some SSDs write as slow as 13M/S but thankfully as far as I know this one has the new Samsung which writes at around 90MB/s.
The 8400M does support higher resolutions easily. 2560 was supported for at least 3 years by every mobile card from Nvidia. The problem is the lack of a DVI connector. Would have been a better choice than a VGA for sure.
I also have questions for owners of this machine.
How well does the HDMI do? and does it support audio out also?
What kinds of battery times are you guys getting (those with ssd and those without) i’d be interested in a comparison.
Does the media direct partition mean that the device has an offline mediaplayer mode? I assume it does, but does it support MPG2, MPG4 (xvid, divx) and X264 (AVC) ?? AC3, OGG, MKV etc?
If the media software is as bad as other media partitions of this type I’ve seen, it’s probably worth scrapping, unless it has good power management and a nice suite of codecs + the ability to play from external devices. Any feedback on that would be well appreciated.
Have a nice day l33ts and n00bs
Pras
anonymous from February 9, 2008 06:26 PM,
Didn’t quite understand your question, but I currently own a vaio SZ and I frequently use
fn + up
fn + down
fn + left
fn + right
I am a programmer so I find these key combinations very useful. Can you achieve the same effect with the XPS by pressing ALT, is that what you’re saying?
Great machine, good looks but I am somewhat concerned about build quality, still not sure if this is the machine that i should spend big money on!
For those of you interested in the details of getting the SSD option with the M1330, I wrote a review on it at: http://www.followsteph.com/2008/02/14/solid-state-drive-ssd-review/
It’s for the 32Gb option, so the 64Gb SSD might be slightly different.